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SONGS 
FROM THE SOUTHLAND 



SELECTED BY 

S . F . PRICE 




BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP COMPANY 



WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROM FIELD 










11 



Copyright, 1890, 
I). Luthrop Company. 



SONGS 
FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 



THE CLOSING YEAR. 

GEORGE D. PRENTICE. 

Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now 

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 

The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell 

Of the departed year. No funeral train 

Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, 

With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest 

Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred, 

As by a mourner's sigh ; and, on yon cloud, 

That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 

The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand. 



6 SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 

And Winter with its aged locks — and breathe 

In mournful cadences, that come abroad, 

Like the far windharps wild, touching wail, 

A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, 

Gone from the earth forever. 

Tis a time 
For memory and for tears. Within the deep, 
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim, 
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of time, 
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 
And solemn finger to the beautiful 
And holy visions, that have passed away, 
And left no shadow of their loveliness 
On the dead waste of life. The spectre lifts 
The coffin-lid of Hope and Joy and Love, 
And bending mournfully above the pale, 
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers 
O'er what has passed to nothingness. 

The year 
Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course. 



SOJVGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

It waved its sceptre o'er tlie beautiful; 

And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 

Upon the strong man : and the haughty form 

Is fallen, and the Hashing eye is dim. 

It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 

The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail 

Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song 

And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er 

The battle plain, where sword, and spear and shield, 

Flashed in the light of midday ; and the strength 

Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass. 

Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 

The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came, 

And faded like a wreath of mist at eve ; 

Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 

It heralded its millions to their home, 

In the dim land of dreams. 

Remorseless time ! 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What powei 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity! On, still on, 
He presses and forever. The proud bird, 
The Condor of the Andes, that can soar 
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 



8 SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

The fury of the northing hurricane. 
And bath its plumage in the thunder's home 
Furls his broad wing at nightfall, and sinks down 
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
His rushing pinion. 

Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink 
Like bubbles on the water: fiery isles 
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear 
To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain; and empires rise, 
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries. 
And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche, 
Startling the nations; and the very stars. 
Yon bright and glorious blazonry of God, 
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, 
And like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away 
To darkle in the trackless void ; yet Time, 
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
Upon the fearful ruin he hath wrought. 



CHRISTMAS. [1864.] 



HENRY TIM ROD. 



How grace this hallowed day ? 
Shall happy bells, from yonder ancient spire, 
Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire 

Round which the children play? 



How shall we grace the day? 
Ah! Let the thought that on this holy morn 
The Prince of Peace — the Prince of Peace was born 

Employ us, while we pray! 

Pray for the peace which long 
Hath left this tortured land, and haply now 
Holds its white court on some far mountain's brow, 

There hardly safe from wrong ! 



SOJVGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Let every sacred fane 
Call its sad votaries to the shrine of God, 
And, with the cloister and the tented sod, 

Join in one solemn strain ! 

He, who, till time shall cease, 
Will watch that earth, where once, not all in vain, 
He died to give us peace, may not disdain 

A prayer whose theme is — peace. 

Perhaps ere yet the Spring 
Hath died into the Summer, over all 
The land, the Peace of His vast love shall fall, 

Like some protecting wing. 

Oh, ponder what it means ! 
Oh, turn the rapturous thought in every way ! 
Oh, give the vision and the fancy play, 

And shape the coming scenes ! 

Peace in the quiet dales, 
Made rankly fertile by the blood of men, 
Peace in the woodland, and the lonely glen, 

Peace in the peopled vales ! 



12 SOA r GS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Peace in the crowded town, 
Peace in the thousand fields of waving grain, 
Peace in the highway and the flowery lane, 

Peace on the wind-swept down ! 

Peace on the farthest seas, 
Peace in our sheltered bays and ample streams, 
Peace whereso'er our starry garland gleams; 

And peace in every breeze ! 

Peace on the whirring marts, 
Peace where the scholar thinks — the hunter roams, 
Peace, God of Peace ! Peace, peace, in all our homes, 

And peace in all our hearts ! 



LA BELLE JUIVE. 

HENRY TIM ROD. 

Is it because your sable hair 
Is folded over brows that wear 
At times a too imperial air; 

Or is it that the thoughts which rise 
In those dark orbs do seek disguise 
Beneath the lids of Eastern eyes ; 

That choose whatever pose or place 
May chance to please, in you I trace 
The noblest woman of your race ? 

The crowd is sauntering at its ease. 
And humming like a hive of bees — 
You take your seat and touch the keys 

*5 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

I do not hear the giddy throng; 
The sea avenges Israel's wrong, 
And on the mind floats Miriam's song ! 

You join me with a stately grace : 

Music to Poesy gives place ; 

Some grand emotion lights your face : 

At once I stand by Mizpeh's walls ; 
With smiles the martyred daughter falls, 
And desolate are Mizpeh's halls ! 

Intrusive babblers come between; 
With calm, pale brow and lofty mein, 
You thread the circle like a queen ! 

Then sweeps the royal Esther by ; 
The deep devotion in her eye, 
Js looking " If I die, 1 die! " 

You stroll the gardener's flowery walks. 
The plants to me are grainless stalks 
And Ruth to old Naomi talks 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Adopted child of Judah's creed, 
Like Judah's daughters, true at need, 
I see you mid the alien seed. 

I watch afar the gleaner sweet ; 
I watch like Boaz in the wheat, 
And find you lying at my feet. 

My feet ! Oh ! if the spell that lures, 

My heart through all these dreams endures, 

How soon shall I be stretched at yours ! 



TO HELEN. 

EDGAR ALLAN POE. 

Helen, thy beauty is to me 

Like those Nicean barks of yore. 

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea. 

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 
To his own native shore. 

On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
To the glory that was Greece 

And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche 
How statue-like I see thee stand ! 
The agate lamp within thy hand, 

Ah ! Psyche, from the regions which 
Are Holy Land ! 

18 



A CHRISTMAS CHANT. 

FATHER RYAN. 

Four thousand years earth waited, 
Four thousand years men prayed, 

Four thousand years the nations sighed 
That their King so long delayed. 

The prophets told His coming, 
The saintly for Him sighed ; 

And the star of the Babe of Bethlehem 
Shone o'er them when they died. 

Their faces toward the future, 
They longed to hail the light 

That in the after centuries 

Would rise on Christmas night. 
19 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

But still the Saviour tarried, 

Within His father's home ; 
And the nations wept and wondered why 

The promise had not come. 

At last earth's hope was granted, 
And God was a child of earth ; 

And a thousand angels chanted 
The lowly midnight birth. 

Ah ! Bethlehem was grander 

That hour than paradise ; 
And the light of earth that night eclipsed 

The splendour of the skies. 

Then let us sing the anthem, 

The angels once did sing ; 
Until the music of love and praise 

O'er whole wide world will ring. 

Glory in excelsis ! 

Sound the thrilling song; 
In excelsis Deo ! 

Roll the hymn along. 




Then let us sing the . 
The angels once did i 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 23 

Glory in excelsis ! 

Let the heavens ring ; 
In excelsis Deo ! 

Welcome, new-born King. 
Gloria in excelsis! 

Over the sea and land. 
In excelsis Deo! 

Chant the anthem grand. 
Gloria in excelsis ! 

Let us all rejoice ! 
In excelsis Deo! 

Lift each heart and voice. 
Gloria in excelsis ! 

Swell the hymn on high ; 
In excelsis Deo! 

Sound it to the sky. 
Gloria in excelsis ! 

Sing it sinful earth. 
In excelsis Deo ! 

For the Saviour's birth. 

Thus joyful and victoriously, 

Glad and ever so gloriously, 

High as the heavens, wide as the earth, 

Swelleth the hymn of the Saviour's birth. 



THE VOICE IN THE PINES. 



PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 



The morn is softly beautiful and still, 

Its light, fair clouds in pencilled gold and gray 
Pause motionless above the pine-grown hill, 
Where the pines, tranced as by a wizard's will, 
Uprise as mute and motionless as they ! 



Yea! mute and moveless; not one flickering spray 
Flashed into sunlight, nor a gaunt bough stirred; 
Yet, if wooed hence beneath those pines to stray, 
We catch a faint, thin murmur far away, 
A bodiless voice, by grosser ears unheard. 
24 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 25 

What voice is this ? What low and solemn tone, 

Which, though all wings of all the winds seemed 
furled, 

Nor even the zephyr's fairy flute is blown, 

Makes thus forever its mysterious moan 

From out the whispering pine-tops' shadowy world ? 

Ah ! can it be the antique tales are true ? 

Doth some lone Dryad haunt the breezeless air, 
Fronting yon bright immitigable blue, 
And wildly breathing all her wild soul through 

That strange unearthly music of despair ? 

Or can it be that ages since, storm-tossed, 

And driven far inland from the roaring lea, 
Some baffled ocean-spirit, worn and lost, 
Here, through dry summer's dearth and winter's frost, 
Yearns for the sharp, sweet kisses of the sea ? 

Whate'er the spell, I harken and am dumb, 

Dream-touched, and musing in the tranquil morn ; 
All woodland sounds — the pheasant's gusty drum, 
The mock-bird's fugue, the droning insect's hum — 
Scarce heard for that strange, sorrowful voice for- 
lorn ! 



26 SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Beneath the drowsed sense, from deep to deep 

Of spiritual life its mournful minor flows, 
Streamlike, with pensive tide, whose currents keep 
Low murmuring 'twixt the bounds of grief and sleep, 
Yet locked for aye for sleep's divine repose. 



ASPECTS OF THE PINES. 



PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 

Tall, sombre, grim, against the morning sky 
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs, 

Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully, 
As if from realms of mystical despairs. 

Tall, sombre, grim, they stand with dusky gleams 
Brightening to gold within the woodland's core, 

Beneath the gracious noontide's tranquil beams — 
But the weird winds of morning sigh no more. 

A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable, 

Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease, 
And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell 

Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace. 

27 



28 SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

Last, sunset comes — the solemn joy and might 
Borne from the West when cloudless day declines 

Low, flutelike breezes sweep the waves of light, 
And lifting dark green tresses of the pines, 

Till every lock is luminous — gently float, 
Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar 

To faint when twilight on her virginal throat 
Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star. 




" Tall, sombre, grim, they stand- with dusky glear 
Brightening to gold within the woodland's core." 



V 



IN HARBOR. 

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 

I think it is over, over, 

I think it is over at last, 
Voices of foeman and lover, 

The sweet and the bitter have passed — 
Life, like a tempest of ocean 

Hath outblown its ultimate blast. 
There's but a faint sobbing seaward 
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward, 
And behold ! like the welcoming quiver 
Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river, 

Those lights in the barbor at last, 

The heavenly harbor at last ! 

I feel it is over ! over ! 

For the winds and the waters surcease ; 
Ah ! few were the days of the rover 

That smiled in the beauty of peace! 



SONGS FROM THE SOUTH-LAND. 

And distant and dim was the omen 

That hinted redress or release. 
From the ravage of life, and its riot 
What marvel I yearn for the quiet 

Which bides in the harbor at last? 
For the lights with their welcoming quiver 
That through the sanctified river 

Which girdles the harbor at last. 

This heavenly harbor at last ? 

I know it is over, over, 

1 know it is over at last ! 
Down sail ! the sheathed anchor uncover, 

For the stress of the voyage has passed — 
Life, like a tempest of ocean 

Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast. 
There's but a faint sobbing seaward, 
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward; 
And behold ! like the welcoming quiver 
Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river, 

Those lights in the harbor at last, 

The heavenly harbor at last ! 



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